The Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) defines evaluation as a "process of judgment of interventions according to their results, impacts and the needs they aim to satisfy" Inside this paradigm, indicators are set in rural development legislation in order to assess, through their measurement, the efficiency and effectiveness of rural development plans related to their objectives. The article focuses on the monitoring and evaluation mechanism set by the Commission for the evaluation of rural development plans, by analyzing the consequences of this architecture with respect to the role which indicators plays for evaluation and programming. A potential short circuit may occur when program indicators choice requests target fixation through low consistent estimate, and evaluation is bounded to the performance assessment with respect to low consistent targets. The authors illustrates with examples the methodological implications and suggest an exit strategy for the next programming period.
Keywords: Rural Development Plan, European Commission, Common monitoring and evaluation framework, Indicators, Result and Impacts, logical frame work.